Only by the mid 16th century did Europeans learn the Indian technique of determining latitude by celestial observation of the pole star. The Julian calendar simply was simply not enough.They named the techniques after Vernier who popularized it in 17thCE."Independent rediscovery"
"The navigational knowledge of determining latitude and longitude, that the Europeans sought, existed, in widely distributed Indian calendrical manuals, such as the texts of Bhaskara. This knowledge had been revised over the centuries, by various people including Al-Biruni."
Without a meaningful and accurate calendar where at least the solstice actually fell on June 21, the European latitude problem would not end. They couldn't compete with Arabs in trade. Bhaskara, even before Madhava, had already prepared accurate data on the motion of the sun.
It was in the backdrop of this that the Jesuit Christopher Clavius sent Mattio Ricci trained in Math to Cochin, a center of Indian Jyotisha and Jesuit activity. Mattio himself wrote that he was 'learning timekeeping from an intelligent Brahmin' in 1581.
The great efforts of the Jesuits to collect knowledge for the calendar reform which was crucial for Christianity and colonialism finally started paying off in the 17th century when the European mathematicians started comprehending the manuscripts.
Cavalieri, Fermat, Pascal, Gregory etc started publishing the results obtained by Bhaskara & Brahmagupta. None of them revealed sources. Fermat was the most daring of all- he posed the same 'challenge problem' that was clearly already from Brahmagupta.
Do not think, even for a moment that it was all for the love of science. There was colonial ambition, religious fervor to spread to new lands and there was also great prize rewards offered by European states for anyone who solved the navigation problem.
Add to this dangerous mix of greed & vice the free flow of advanced knowledge from India through Arabs and Jesuits, Europe was bound for Imperial glory. All they had to do now was the easy part- Show that all the new miraculous knowledge came to them from their ancestral Greeks!
And they did this splendidly! They literally fabricated medieval texts from Arabs just to ascribe them to the Greeks. Euclid and Ptolemy are two of their greatest artistic inventions. To complete the circular logic, they propagandize that Aryabhatta was inspired by Ptolemy!
The nastiness of Eurocentrism in perspective-
We have the Surya Siddhanta where the sine and cosine appear for the first time. Imagine the greatness of its author who did not even reveal his name!
Then think of Ptolemy for whom texts were fabricated!
We have the Surya Siddhanta where the sine and cosine appear for the first time. Imagine the greatness of its author who did not even reveal his name!
Then think of Ptolemy for whom texts were fabricated!
Then think of the limitlessness of European malice to claim that Ptolemy influenced Aryabhatta and the author of the Surya Siddhanta!
Then think of how PATHETIC we are for buying it and for not teaching at least our own children about the true founding fathers of science.
Then think of how PATHETIC we are for buying it and for not teaching at least our own children about the true founding fathers of science.
There is only one thing worse than not teaching Indian children about Brahmagupta, Bhaskara and Madhava- teaching them the same lies taught to European children. I fully remember how nauseatingly CBSE and ICSE textbooks glorify ancient Greeks and the Medieval thieves.
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